CECIL HURT: Alabama leans on out-of-state football players

Tuesday

Jul 8, 2014 at 10:42 PMJul 8, 2014 at 10:58 PM

You'll never win an argument in the state of Alabama by taking a stance against the local football talent.

By Cecil HurtHalifax Media Group

TUSCALOOSA — You'll never win an argument in the state of Alabama by taking a stance against the local football talent.This is football country, and the passion for the top-shelf college programs in Alabama rolls down to every level. High school football matters, and the state produces plenty of talent per capita as a result of that passion, which gently pushes many of the top athletes to participate at an early age.And the anecdotal evidence Alabama produces great players is overwhelming at a Hall of Fame level: John Hannah, Lee Roy Jordan, Ken Stabler, Ozzie Newsome, Johnny Musso, Cornelius Bennett, Julio Jones and, if you prefer non-Crimson flavor, Bo Jackson, Walter Jones, Karlos Dansby and the most recent Heisman Trophy winner, Jameis Winston. Those names are beyond dispute. Alabama produces great players, and every school, including Alabama and Auburn, needs those superstars on its roster.There is no argument about quality. The more important concept is quantity, and just how much of a school's signing class should come from within the state's borders. The laws of mathematics can be bent by intangibles but they cannot ultimately be ignored. The state of Alabama, with a population of approximately 4.7 million, cannot produce enough prospects to sustain two SEC-level in-state programs in the way Texas and Florida can.Consider this: the Crimson Tide's 2011 signing class produced a grand total of one in-state player, Christion Jones, that will contribute in 2014. Vinnie Sunseri would have been a second on that list, had he returned. But that's it. Auburn got a bit more that year — notably Reese Dismukes and Sammie Coates — but it just wasn't a vintage year in the state, which does seem to have cycles of boom-and-bust. To be fair, 2011 was atypically thin.Alabama is currently less reliant on state players than it has been in years. Out-of-state recruiting is nothing new, from the importing of Don Hutson and Paul Bryant to Joe Namath to Shaun Alexander to the modern day stars like Mark Ingram and Amari Cooper, to name two out of dozens.Nick Saban, however, has been the first head coach that has transformed Alabama into a truly national recruiting entity. That isn't out of a lack of commitment to in-state high school football. Saban and his staff give back constantly to the state.But it is an acceptance of those mathematical realities. This is strictly my opinion, but if there was ever a situation where an in-state prospect was absolutely equal to an out-of-state player in every way from athletic ability to academics to work ethic, Saban would lean to the in-state player. But when you have certain criteria for every position, and they are of national championship standard, you have to find those players where they are, because Alabama isn't going to produce those players in Texas/Florida/California abundance.That leads, ultimately, to a question that cannot be definitively answered. Is there an intangible quality that makes in-staters play “harder” for the home state school — especially if they grew up as diehard fans — than their out-of-state teammates? Does it somehow “mean more” if you are from Birmingham or Bayou Le Batre rather than Baltimore? Some people would argue it does matter if a player understands the SEC, the Alabama-Auburn rivalry or the passionate peculiarities of the fan base. Others say those things can be learned.But the history of great player after great player, some of whom (Demeco Ryans, for instance) were not five-star recruits, means this state should never be an afterthought for any program.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of the Tuscaloosa News. He can be reached at cecil@tidesports.com.

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